The first ingredient in the food is a named meat product. This is not a meat meal, but is inclusive of water content (about 80%). Once this is removed, as it must be to create a dehydrated product, the ingredient will weigh around 20% of its wet weight. As ingredients are listed in order of weight, it is thus unlikely that this is truely the first ingredient in the food, but would be more accurately placed much further down the ingredient list as a minor ingredient in the food.

The second ingredient is byproducts. It is impossible to ascertain the quality of by-products and these are usually products that are of such low quality as to be rejected for use in the human food chain, or else are those parts that have so little value that they cannot be used elsewhere in either the human or pet food industries. The AAFCO definition of Chicken by-product meal is “a meal consisting of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidable in good processing practice.

The only true meat ingredient in this food is the 8th ingredient, which is far too far down the ingredient list to make any significant difference to the overall meat content or quality of this product. 10th is a fish meal, but we are unable to locate any guarantee by the manufacturer that this ingredient is free of ethoxyquin. Ethoxyquin is a chemical preservative commonly added to fish ingredients destined for pet foods and which is banned from use in human foods because it is believed to be carcinogenic. We recommend careful checking of the packaging for any such guarantee (specific to this ingredient).

The main grain and main ingredient in the food is corn. Corn is a difficult to digest grain of limited value and that is commonly associated with allergy problems. In "grits" form it is missing the bran and germ, and is a grain fragment we consider primarily filler. Sorghum is decent quality, but brewers rice is a low quality grain that is a byproduct. This product is very heavy in grain content with little meat included for the canine.

Beet pulp is a controversial filler. It is a by-product, being dried residue from sugar beets which has been cleaned and extracted in the process of manufacturing sugar. It is a controversial ingredient in dog food, claimed by some manufacturers to be a good source of fibre, and derided by others as an ingredient added to slow down the transition of rancid animal fats and causing stress to kidney and liver in the process. We note that beet pulp is an ingredient that commonly causes problems for dogs, including allergies and ear infections, and prefer not to see it used in dog food. There are less controversial products around if additional fibre is required. We would prefer to see the use of whole eggs rather than egg product in the food.